Up Next for Erie airportErie International Airport will put finishing touches on its new runway this year.The Erie Regional Airport Authority will award the contract for the final phase of construction in late March or early April. Work will include resurfacing the old portion of the runway.No major construction is scheduled for 2014.Airport officials will evaluate and rank future needs as they update the facility's long-range plan, as required by the Federal Aviation Administration, in 2015. Future needs include a new terminal, control tower, fire station and air cargo facility, airport Executive Director Chris Rodgers said.

Erie International Airport's new, longer runway is landing flights that last winter would have been rerouted or grounded.

Over time, the $83 million project is also expected to land additional airlines, cargo and charter flights, airport Executive Director Chris Rodgers said.

"These kind of talks have been ongoing over the last two years, but the effort ramped up significantly once the extended runway opened," Rodgers said.

The 7,500-foot runway opened to air traffic in early November.

Airport officials specifically expect to add service to warm-weather destinations that previously weren't accessible from Erie because of weight restrictions on the old, shorter runway, Rodgers said. Under the old restrictions, planes could not carry enough fuel to reach Orlando, Cancun and other sunny destinations, and they could not carry enough passengers to make the flights profitable for carriers.

Restrictions on the extended runway are much more liberal, and Rodgers is optimistic that Erie will be served by larger, more fuel-efficient planes currently on order by a number of airlines.

"Airlines are replacing 50-seat planes with, say, 70-seat planes that use the same amount of fuel, and will be able to expand their service and their fleets. And we are competing heavily for that expanded service," Rodgers said.

As the airline industry reinvents itself, Rodgers is convinced that Erie's airport is in a position to grow.

"We have the equipment, components, actual runway length and standard safety areas that airlines need to operate here safely now and into the future," Rodgers said. "I have a very strong, very optimistic perception of where this industry is going, and of our role within that industry."

The extended runway is already paying off in improved safety and service, said Rodgers, who watched a Delta Air Lines flight from Detroit land at the airport during a snow squall on Jan. 23. The flight would not have been able to land on the shorter runway.

Heavy snow had limited visibility to almost zero and forced the plane into a holding pattern at 5,000 feet. Rodgers and airport Chief Financial Officer Sheilah Bruno listened as the pilot asked the tower for a weather update and was told that visibility had cleared to one-quarter mile. The pilot landed the plane.

"The first thing we saw of it was when the airplane appeared on the taxiway," Rodgers said.

The Federal Aviation Administration requires visibility of at least one-quarter mile to land on the new runway. It required double that, or one-half mile visibility, to land on the old 6,500-foot runway.

"Every person on that Delta plane probably had no idea that the runway extension is what got them home and was the sole reason that plane took off again for Detroit later," Rodgers said. "It had already happened a number of times this winter, but that was the first time we were able to watch it and hear it play out right in front of us."

The runway extension additionally improved airport safety by adding FAA-required safety areas at each end of the main east-west runway. The airport had been allowed to operate without the required safety areas, by FAA special waiver, until 2014.

"Had we not extended the runway, we would have lost the waiver. We would have been required to take 2,000 feet off the 6,500-foot runway to make 1,000-foot safety areas at either end," Rodgers said. "The Delta regional jets that fly in here today would not have been able to operate."

Erie is also served by United, which flies to and from Cleveland, and US Airways, with service to and from Philadelphia.

That air service pumped almost $165 million into the regional economy via jobs, spending and tourism in 2010, according to a study commissioned by the Pennsylvania Bureau of Aviation. And that number will only grow, Rodgers said.

"What is most telling about that analysis is that it did not include construction spending at all, only aviation activity. And in 2010, the time frame that this study was done, this country was very depressed economically and the airline industry was in a very bad way, contracting and getting smaller. Our level of activity in 2010 was suppressed; it was not our true potential. The airport's economic impact on this region will be much greater," Rodgers said.

Erie International Airport extended its runway in a multiyear construction project that began after the contract for site preparation was awarded in June 2010. The longer runway opened to air traffic Nov. 7.

VALERIE MYERS can be reached at 878-1913 or by e-mail. Follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/ETNmyers.

Up Next for Erie airportErie International Airport will put finishing touches on its new runway this year.The Erie Regional Airport Authority will award the contract for the final phase of construction in late March or early April. Work will include resurfacing the old portion of the runway.No major construction is scheduled for 2014.Airport officials will evaluate and rank future needs as they update the facility's long-range plan, as required by the Federal Aviation Administration, in 2015. Future needs include a new terminal, control tower, fire station and air cargo facility, airport Executive Director Chris Rodgers said.